


i need the darkness (someone please cut the lights)

by ariya167, gaypunkspaceunicorn



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Family, Five after the apocalypse, Gen, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-08 22:31:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17989727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariya167/pseuds/ariya167, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaypunkspaceunicorn/pseuds/gaypunkspaceunicorn
Summary: Five, immediately after the apocalypse.





	i need the darkness (someone please cut the lights)

Five stumbled through the wreckage, tears blotting his eyes, and looked down into the broken and flaming rubble of the place he called home. Nothing had escaped the destruction, the giant stones that made up the front of the building lay mixed in with shreds of paper, shards of glass, and torn fabric.

He spotted a crumpled newspaper lying on the corner, and ran to grab it. It was 2019. Seventeen years in the future, and Five couldn’t get back to his family. He was stuck there, under the ice and never acorning.

He clenched his fists, breathing hard. Just one more jump and he’d be back home. Easy. Except it wasn’t working and he-he . . . 

A sob escaped Five’s throat. 

“Vanya!” he shouted, hoping against hope that someone, anyone, would respond. That he wouldn’t be alone. “Ben!” 

Suddenly he saw something in the rubble and ran towards it. What he saw stopped him in his tracks as he gazed down on Diego’s lifeless body. Even seventeen years later, it was obviously him with the eyebrow scar from falling down the stairs aged eight, and the small, shiny, silver knife clutched in his hand.

“Fuck!” Five screamed, tears streaming down his face. He wanted to call for help, and the words were half out of his mouth before he realised the truth. Five was all alone.

Scrambling around, he saw Allison, her makeup expertly applied even in death, and who must’ve been Luther - big and burly - next to her. Klaus was there too, a little ways away, his black hair plastered against his face. There was something clenched in his hand, and Five eased it open, swallowing his revulsion. 

It was a small, spherical object, and when Five blew the dust off of it, he realized it was a glass eye.

He rocked back on his heels, fighting the urge to laugh as tears pricked his eyes. His family, dead in something that might as well have been the apocalypse, and the only thing he had to show for it was a glass eye that, knowing Klaus, was likely incredibly worthless. 

Five didn’t know how long he stayed like that, crouched on the ground, his gaze firmly fixed on his feet. But eventually he slipped the eye into his pocket, and stood up. 

He had only seen four bodies. Where was Vanya and Ben? Vanya, who would play the violin for him when he was frustrated with a math problem, or listen to him talk about time travel without complaining. And Ben. Quiet and shy, his nose always in a book, but he would stand up for Five in an argument with their siblings. 

“Vanya!” he shouted again. “Ben!” Five stumbled off the rocks, and starting running. He didn’t even know where, but there was a chance they could be alive. No matter how small a chance, he had to look for them.   
Soon, he was panting, his lungs choking on the smoke filling the sky. It seemed like every building, buildings he had known his whole life, were up in smoke. 

Five looked into the distance and was blinded by the sun. There had been a building there, hadn’t there? He thought, racing towards the emptiness. 

It was the library, reduced to rubble. Tattered pages drifted softly across the ground, the words obscured by scorch marks. He barely recognized the shell of the building, even as his memories started to fill in the gaps. 

“Ben? Vanya? Anyone?” he screamed, his voice suddenly tiny in the still, smoky air. Running forward into the ruins, Five tripped over a dirty, ripped book. He glanced down, and could barely believe his luck.

The book was called Extra Ordinary, and it was written by Vanya. It was a memoir about their lives. And, it might provide clues about what had happened. Five wanted to devour the whole thing right there, but with everyone dead he would have time for that later. So, skimming the table of contents, he flipped to a section titled The Tragedies.

The first few pages were about his own disappearance, and he cried freely realising that he would never make his way back home. His father wasn’t here, and he didn’t have to be strong anymore. And then he saw the line that changed everything. Ben had died when they were all eighteen. That explained the absence of a body. But what about Vanya?

Five hurriedly flipped through the rest of the book, but there was no more information he could see. So that had to mean she was still out there. He stood up, tucked the book into his clothes, and started walking. Now, trapped and alone in the apocalypse, he had a mission.


End file.
